


Time Enough for Love

by nonelvis



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 10:26:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonelvis/pseuds/nonelvis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To quote Ianto: "There are lots of things you can do with a stopwatch."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Enough for Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [**jinxed_wood**](http://jinxed-wood.livejournal.com/) as part of the [DW/Torchwood/SJA Cliché-Swap Ficathon](http://lizbee.livejournal.com/887735.html), taking the Jack/Ianto cliché "You get the stopwatch; I'll grab the lube" and applying it to a different pairing. Deepest apologies to the ghost of Robert A. Heinlein for nicking his title, but it really was the right one.

"That one. I need _that_ one, Martha," says the Doctor, pointing to a display in the jeweller's window.

Martha peers at the window, where a shiny silver stopwatch nestles in blue velvet, a tiny pricetag discreetly curled behind the watch's stem. There seems to be a stray zero at the end of the number on the tag, but when Martha blinks to clear her vision, the price still hasn't changed.

"Tell me again why we can't buy an ordinary stopwatch?" she asks. Just waiting for the Doctor's explanation to begin brings on a slight and not entirely unexpected twinge, and she massages her temple to stave off the headache.

"Mass-produced won't do, Martha. Too many imperfections. I need something high-quality, like that: sterling silver, hand-milled components, accurate to within 1/100th of a second. Why, the mainspring alone –"

Martha wonders if she's got any aspirin back at the flat. What she doesn't take to treat her headache she can use to poison her flatmate for his extravagance with her hard-earned money.

"Doctor, do you have any idea how much that costs?"

"You've got a job. You can afford it –"

Martha laughs. "_If_ neither of us minds not eating for the next week or so."

"Fine, then," he says airily. "No stopwatch, no timey-wimey device, no TARDIS, no ride home, just us and whatever happens in 1970 ... hmm, new Elton John album, that's something to look forward to ..."

"All right, all right! I'll save up for it. But you'll have to wait a few weeks, okay? And maybe learn to cook in the meantime?"

"Martha Jones," the Doctor harrumphs as she drags him away from the picture window, "I'll have you know that blackened green beans are all the rage on Telamos VII."

* * *

 

Three weeks later, the Doctor's cooking still hasn't improved significantly, though at least the green beans have evolved from "unrecognisable" to "almost pleasantly charred." Martha cleans her plate and announces her surprise, placing a hinged jewellery box on the table and sliding it towards the Doctor.

The Doctor looks positively giddy, but Martha snatches back the box before he can take it. "Uh-uh," she says. "I'd like you to do something else for me first."

He folds his arms over his chest. "You'd think you wanted to stay in 1969 forever, Miss Jones."

"No, I'm just tired of looking at all the bits and bobs for the timey-wimey machine you've got lying around the flat. We've only got a couple of rooms, and I'd like to have somewhere to sit other than this chair."

"Let me finish the machine, and then we'll have all the space you could possibly want."

Martha flips open the box lid and removes the stopwatch. She takes a rumpled wax paper sack from her jacket pocket and sets it next to the lid on the table.

"Five minutes," she says. "If you can pack everything away in five minutes, I'll give you these jelly babies. Minus a couple of the lemon ones, 'cause I like those."

The Doctor slides back his chair, its legs squeaking across the dingy linoleum floor, and places his palms on the table. He looks Martha squarely in the eye. "Bet you I do it in less than four minutes," he says.

"I'll believe it when I see it," she replies, eyebrow arched. The living room carpet and sofa are covered with piles of wire and screws, plastic film reels, even the remnants of several Bakelite telephones the Doctor salvaged from the skip behind an office building. There's no way Martha's going to lose this bet, even if all she earns is satisfaction and a bagful of jelly babies the Doctor will probably raid in the middle of the night.

"Will you give me the stopwatch if I do?" he asks.

"Of course. I was going to anyway."

The Doctor leans close enough to Martha that she could count every adorable freckle of his if she wanted to, and it isn't like she hasn't contemplated that before. She's suddenly glad she's still sitting down, so the Doctor can't see how her knees have started to tremble.

"Then after I win," he says, his voice nearly a whisper, "it'll be my turn."

* * *

 

The Doctor pops a raspberry jelly baby into his mouth and chews thoughtfully.

"Eight minutes," he says. "All the dishes, washed, dried, and put away, in eight minutes."

"I can do it in seven," Martha replies, hands on hips.

"Right, then; make it six."

She looks up at him and that smug grin he's wearing. How he can manage to be simultaneously aggravating and charming is a constant mystery to her. "What'll you give me if – no, _when_ – I win?"

The Doctor fumbles around in his right pocket. "Umm ... I've a rather nice ball of lint here. Possibly alien lint."

"Try again," Martha says, while she tries not to notice how the tip of the Doctor's tongue traces his upper lip as he concentrates on finding something valuable.

"Oh! Here you go. Straight from the Phylamonian royal court. Belonged to the princess."

Martha takes the object between two fingers. "A hair clip," she says sceptically, and twists it in the air to see if she can spot what makes this particular accessory so remarkable. "Princess, my arse. This is a fifty-pence barrette you found lying in the street."

The Doctor scratches his chin. "Well, yes, but it's got a lovely pink bow, don't you think?"

Martha slaps the barrette back into the Doctor's hand. "Tell you what. I do all this in six minutes, Mister All-I've-Got-Is-Lint-and-a-Hair-Clip? You owe me a kiss. And a proper one, too, none of this 'genetic transfer' nonsense."

The Doctor's grin suddenly fades, and he goes stock-still, the barrette resting lightly, unclaimed, on his open palm.

Martha claps her hand over her mouth. "Oh my God," she says through spread fingers. "I didn't just say that, did I?"

Very slowly, the Doctor's hand curls around the hair clip, and he replaces it in his pocket, never taking his eyes from Martha's face. Martha shrinks back to the sink, her hands fluttering toward the rubber dish gloves and the water taps.

"Just forget I said anything. Please," she says, and promptly lets a slippery, soapy dish hit the bottom of the sink too hard, sending a white ceramic chip flying.

The Doctor takes a deep breath and settles in at the corner of the kitchen, bracing himself on the Formica countertop. Martha attacks a frying pan with a sponge, digging in deep with her nails to scrub off the burnt patches. When she turns to place the pan in the dishrack, the Doctor is still watching her.

"Four minutes and thirty-three seconds," he says.

Martha's hands freeze on the dishrack. "What?"

"Four minutes and twenty-eight seconds now," the Doctor continues. "You've got quite a few dishes left, Martha Jones. I'd get to work, if I were you."

He casually takes a step forward, picks up one of Martha's gloved hands, and moves it back to the rim of the sink. Her skin tingles as his fingers brush her hair away from the side of her face, and again when she hears his voice, low and soft next to her ear. "After all, you do want to win, don't you?"

She finishes with two and a quarter seconds to spare.

* * *

 

Martha tries to give the Doctor a countdown of the remaining five seconds he has to remove her bra blindfolded and with one hand held behind his back, but it's impossible to concentrate when he's pinching her nipple and massaging her breast through the satin fabric.

"You lose," she gasps, as the watch ticks over to a minute.

The Doctor's other hand slides over the tense muscles in Martha's abdomen, fingers popping open the button to her jeans and smoothly slipping inside her knickers.

"I don't think so," he replies.

* * *

 

With the lumpy and threadbare plaid couch finally clear of mechanical debris, it's free for Martha to recline against the Doctor's chest, held fast by his legs on either side of her. His hands drift over her hips, pushing down her jeans and underwear, and Martha kicks them to the other end of the couch. The Doctor clears the time on the stopwatch, restarts it, and presses it into Martha's hand.

His lips graze the back of her neck, his breath tickling and warming her skin, and his fingers ever so slowly skim Martha's side, reaching between her legs to part them. He doesn't tell Martha why he's started the timer, and she doesn't ask, just raises her hips to meet his touch, an index finger gliding along her wetness, slipping inside her all the way to the last knuckle.

Martha groans and closes her eyes. If she keeps them closed, maybe she can convince herself that this is only a highly realistic fantasy, because in real life, she's sure the Doctor would never be sucking salty sweat from her shoulder while he fondles one of her breasts and brushes his thumb lightly over her clit. He would not be nibbling at her earlobe or inserting two more fingers inside her, and she would not be tightening her thighs around his hand, or feeling the firm pressure of his erection against her lower back.

And he certainly wouldn't be whispering things in her ear about what he'd be doing to her if they only had a condom, or how she might have figured in some of his less appropriate dreams back in 1913, or whether he had any particularly creative ideas involving the sack of jelly babies.

But the flush of heat spreading up and out from her centre, and the stifled cry she makes as she clenches around his fingers; now, those would have happened regardless of whether this was fantasy, yet when Martha opens her eyes, it really is the Doctor's hand and not her own between her legs. She sinks back against him, resting, and feels him reach for the watch.

"Not entirely accurate," he murmurs, clicking the timer stem. "You got distracted, Martha."

She cranes her neck up to cock an eyebrow at him. "Really, you think?"

"Eight minutes, eleven seconds. Call it a baseline." He touches his lips to her ear again, and Martha shivers. "Next time, it'll take much, much longer."

* * *

 

Martha flips herself over and kneels between the Doctor's legs, cupping his balls with one hand, unzipping his trousers with the other.

"Start the timer," she says, and waits until she hears the click of the watch stem.

She leans down and takes his cock in her mouth. It isn't the most comfortable position she's ever used for this, but it's good enough, and she savours the way the Doctor twitches when she first wraps her lips around him.

The cool skin on her tongue is a little different than what Martha's used to, but everything else – the shallow pants of breath she hears, the groan the Doctor makes when she slackens her mouth to take more of him in, the way he thrusts upwards when she moves a hand behind his balls to tease him further – that's all familiar. The watch ticks quietly in the background while she strokes and licks him, counting off the seconds of their competition.

She sucks harder at his tip, swirling her tongue over the edge of the glans, and feels the Doctor beginning to tense up. One more tantalising lick that makes him moan; then Martha sits up, replacing her mouth with her right hand.

"You _stopped_," the Doctor whines, but then Martha starts to move her hand, applying pressure in new and apparently very interesting ways, based on the sounds he starts to make.

She touches his trembling lip with a fingertip. "I wanted to watch you," she says, and lets her hand move a little more quickly.

The Doctor reaches for Martha's finger, lacing his hand through hers. He closes his eyes, lets his head drop back on the arm of the couch, and Martha can tell by the way his grip on her tightens that he's very close now. She loosens her fist to draw things out a little longer, selfishly, just so she can see the look on his face: lost and far away, but for once, absolutely hers.

A few shorter, faster strokes; then he groans loudly as his body arches upwards and he spatters Martha's hand, as well as his shirt, when he comes. Martha's touches slow until he finishes and relaxes onto the couch, breathing heavily.

She takes the watch from his hand and stops it. "You got distracted, too, I see," she says with the hint of a smile. "Mmm, nearly forty seconds less than me. I'm afraid you lose, Doctor."

He raises his head and sits up, bolstering himself on his elbows. "This time, maybe."

Martha, still grinning with triumph, hands him the stopwatch. "You promise there's going to be a next time?"

The Doctor hefts the watch, then flicks it over his head, where it arcs high in the air and lands in the box of timey-wimey device parts with a clatter. "There might be," he says, and flashes a grin back at her. "But you'd better start saving for another stopwatch."


End file.
